


A Dark Night

by VeteranKlaus



Series: Cut Me To The Bone [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Accidents, Asphyxiation, Blood and Violence, Child Abuse, Conditioning, Drowning, Gen, Graphic Description, Hallucinations, Humiliation, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Threats of Violence, Torture, Waterboarding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22633486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: Cha-Cha could recite from front to back both 'Torture 101' and 'The Art of Interrogation'.Rather generously, she gave the junkie in front of her three hours before he broke.Or, Hazel and Cha-Cha are supposedly the best of the best, and they obviously had done worse to their previous victims. Klaus is no exception.
Series: Cut Me To The Bone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630444
Comments: 108
Kudos: 500





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Read the tags!
> 
> This is just pure Klaus whump bc I, apparently, cannot stop being mean to this poor boy. And also, I just got frustrated one night with how Hazel and Cha-Cha were supposedly the best of the best, who evidently did much worse to their past victims, and had Klaus, a drug addict going through withdrawals cold-turkey for the first time in potentially years, and just knocked him around a bit and his torture was basically forgotten about after it happened.
> 
> So, uh, this was created.

He is high. Higher than he thought he had been, really, because when his eyes finally obey his commands and pry open, he sees that he is somewhere dark, somewhere cold. It takes his eyes several moments to realise he is in a large, abandoned warehouse. The kind that he’d often break into when they were used to host not-quite-legal raves inside of them, or the kind that he’d break into to fall into a corner and stick a needle into his veins.

Goosebumps had risen on his skin thanks to the chill running through the place and he is painfully aware of the fact that he had only a towel clinging desperately onto his hips. His head is swimming, his body tingly with his high, and his head throbs distantly.

“Good, you’re finally awake.”

His head lifts up from where it had been drooping low enough that his chin was against his chest and he blinks several times, as if trying to ensure that what he is seeing in front of him now is not a hallucination.

There are two people in front of him, both clad in formal suits, both wearing masks that entirely cover their faces. The masks, however, are of colourful, childish bears. His eyebrows knit together and he blinks, blinks again, and tries to raise his hands to rub his eyes. They never come up. It only occurs to him then that he’s sitting on a chair and that his wrists are duct-taped to the arms, and there is duct tape over his mouth.

“You understand, things are going to get much worse for you if you don’t do what I tell you. If you do, then this is going to go much easier. Understand?”

Klaus’ eyes flick around, bouncing between the two figures by him, the eerie surroundings, his trapped situation. Then his eyes land on Ben, hovering nearby, and he makes a noise.

“Stay calm, Klaus,” Ben says. “This is real. Just go with it; I don’t know what they want yet.”

Klaus forces his eyes back to the person wearing the pink mask in front of him. She tips her head to the side. “Are you going to cooperate?” She asks. Klaus nods his head eagerly and eyes her hand as she comes closer, nails scratching his skin as she peels the tape off. His tongue dashes out across his lips and he swallows, breathing in deeply.

“Who are you?” He asks, leaning back in his chair in a futile attempt to put some space between the two of them; he doesn’t like how close she is. It makes him uncomfortable; puts him on edge as she lingers in his personal space, close enough that he has to crane his neck up to look at her. “I – what do you want? If it’s money, you’re in luck – I just got a shit ton of inheritance, if you’d be so kind as to let me go, I could go and get that for you right now, yeah?” He nods his head eagerly, looking pointedly between her and his trapped wrists.

“Just listen,” she tells him, shaking her head. “I’m not looking for money-“

“Drugs?” Klaus blurts. “I can get that, too, real quick, or connections? That, too-“

She backhands him. The motion jars him, sends his head spinning to face the side and sends the room spinning even faster than it already was. Heat rises to the spot she had slapped and his tongue moves in his mouth, stinging and sore.

“Listen to me,” she repeats, voice much firmer and colder, and she crouches down to rest her arms on his knees, leaning even closer into his personal space. His back presses against the unyielding chair behind him and there’s nowhere he can go to try and put even a few inches of space between the two of them.

“Cooperate, Klaus,” says Ben, hovering behind Pink’s shoulder. “Just listen to what she’s saying.”

Klaus presses his lips together and nods his head. “I want to know where Five Hargreeves is.”

Klaus blinks. What?

“Where is Five?”

What does she want with Five? Mostly, he’s just surprised that this kidnapping isn’t in reference to something he’s done – this, evidently, isn’t a gang or a dealer that he’s managed to piss off at some point. They’re not here for money he owes them, or for payback for stealing anything from them or throwing them in a loop. No; they’re here for Five.

What kind of enemies does Five have? Klaus can’t fathom what Five might have done to make two people like this, clad in suits and masks, chase him.

“I, uh – what?” He stammers intelligently.

The woman sighs audibly. “I’ll give you one last chance because I’m feeling nice,” she tells him, standing upright. “Five Hargreeves. The child with the portraits all over that nice Academy we stole you from. Where is he?”

Klaus shakes his head, blanking. “I, uh, don’t know. He left.”

The woman turns to look at him and he half expected to see that disappointed/disapproving look on her face that he often associates with Reginald now. Maybe she is wearing it, beneath that mask of hers.

“Not the answer I was looking for.” She comes closer, pressing the tape once more to his mouth. She takes a few steps away once more, turning to face Blue, whom had been sitting back on another chair seemingly pulled out of nowhere. There is a briefcase beneath it, a bucket beside him with a cloth hanging over the edge, and two fairly large boxes nearby. He can’t see what is in either bucket or boxes.

The two of them seem to have a silent conversation for several moments, leaving Klaus neglected for the time being, stewing in his own anticipation and the high still clinging intimately to his mind.

Blue prowls closer, cracks his knuckles, and promptly punches Klaus in the face with such force that he’s almost thrown over the arm of the chair he’s trapped in. Then he punches him again, and again, and again; snapping Klaus head side to side and undoubtedly giving him whiplash. It hurts, but then it doesn’t, and the world is spinning dizzily and he’s forgotten what is happening so he simply laughs.

Blue nor Pink seem to like that. The punches keep coming, alternating between his face and his chest and his stomach, until a particularly hard one to the back of his head has him falling doubled-over, limp and unconscious.

###

He thinks it was all just some horrific drug-induced dream when he comes to once more. But then his body aches all over, and his head feels as if it has been split in half, and when he opens his eyes he sees the familiar dirty floor of the warehouse and the familiar masks swimming into his vision.

Upon seeing him sit up, Pink wanders over to him.

“Nice of you to join us,” she drawls bitterly, crouching down to be eye level with him. “We’ve been waiting. I’m hoping that little nap cleared your head, because I’m going to ask you once more; where is Five Hargreeves?”

Klaus groans. His head tips back, though only slightly because moving his neck too much hurts, and he closes his eyes. If anything, his head feels even fuzzier than before. His head pounds and there’s an ever faint ringing in the shells of his ears that is getting on his nerves.

Pink slaps him. Not hard, it doesn’t have to be when his cheek is hot and sensitive and already bruising. He flinches, face screwing up, and forces his eyes open. The tape over his mouth is yanked off much more unceremoniously than last time and he shoots a short glare at her.

“I don’t know where Five is,” he mutters, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “He left. I already told you this.”

Pink stares at him, hardly moving a muscle for several long moments. Long enough that Klaus irritation and anger begins to waver in favour of unease and agitation, his glare softening, eyes flicking away.

The woman sighs, shoves the duct tape over his mouth, and slaps him.

###

The remaining high goes quickly – much quicker than he would have liked. There is nothing to take the edge off as sobriety creeps back in and he remembers, swiftly, how much he hates it.

He’s been high for so long that his mind and his perception of reality feels more at ease and normal when he’s under the influence, and the harshness of sobriety is like taking too much cocaine for the first time. It’s harsh and cold and sharp and disorienting in a way unlike the high from drugs. Reality is vibrant and his senses are heightened, sure, and some things are more intense – but it’s in a nice way. Sobriety is suffocating and cuttingly sharp.

He hates it. The fact that his first time being properly sober in – a while – is aided by someone beating the shit out of him, half-naked in a cold warehouse does not help anything at all.

He can’t tell if he’s nauseous because of how many blows he has received to both his head and his stomach, or if it’s because of the withdrawals he’s been suddenly plunged into.

He watches as Pink lights a cigarette, holding it between her fingers and watching the tip smoulder gently, and he can only imagine how nice the rush would feel right about now.

He almost believes that she’s about to take her mask off and smoke it herself, but then she comes close and presses it down to his arm. He jumps, the fog in his head suddenly clearing in the face of sharp, hot, unrelenting pain, and try as he might he can’t get away from it. He tugs his arm to no avail and Pink just holds the cigarette in place, twisting it into his skin, and only once she’s satisfied with how he’s whimpering and shaking does she take it away. Only to relight it and put it out an inch above the previous place.

She only stops once the cigarette has been completely used up on his skin and there are perfectly circular, angry marks tracking up from the tape on his wrist to his shoulder and he’s crying, strained groans accompanying each breath, his nails digging into the wooden armchair beneath his hands as he rides it out.

Pink drops the cigarette butt onto the floor and wanders around for a few moments before pulling over the one empty chair, setting it across from Klaus and sitting down on it. “So,” she says. “I’m not going to ask you that question again – not just yet. I know I’ll just get pissed off with the answer. Instead, I thought we could talk about you.”

She crosses one leg over the other and Klaus eyes her warily, blinking tears down his cheeks. Then she leans over, reaches out, and yanks the tape off. Klaus grunts, squeezing his eyes shut and turning his face away from her. To get his attention, she digs her thumb into one of the burns on his arm until he’s squirming, begging her to stop.

“As I was saying,” she continues as if nothing happened. “I think we should talk about you. What’s your name?”

Klaus glares at her, though the action is weak with tears in his eyes. Her shoulders slump and her hands reach up, taking off the mask for the first time, and Klaus takes in her face. He shares a look with Ben and then his lips curl upwards and his body curls forwards lazily.

“I think you’re scarier without the mask,” he tells her. She blinks; her face a cool slate of stone, unwavering. Then she hums, pulls out her lighter, holds it a millimetre from his arm and lights it. Klaus yelps, trying to move away but the flame seems to chase his skin, hot and hungry, and he starts to cry again. Her eyes never leave his tear-stained face nor does her own face twitch with any hint of emotion, not even when Klaus begs her to stop.

She only stops when she wants to. Then, she repeats her question. “What’s your name?”

His whole body trembling in pain, his teeth chattering, he says; “K-Klaus.”

Pink smiles. Klaus hates it.

###

She is talking to Blue by the door of the warehouse. Klaus can’t hear what they’re saying. Very occasionally, her eyes flick back to Klaus.

Klaus is too busy trying to focus on swallowing down his nausea to really care.

“Just hold on, Klaus,” Ben tells him, his face pinched. “The others will know. They’ll be looking for you.”

Klaus laughs, shaking his head. Once more he is gagged and so he can’t say anything, but Ben seems to understand him well enough without words. No one will be looking for him; and he had reiterated this to Pink and Blue when they had suggested using him as bait for Five.

They could project his face onto the damn Academy, bruised and bloody as it is, and they would take their sweet time deciphering if Klaus was doing it himself for attention.

Pink leaves. Klaus catches a sliver of sunlight and distant trees outside before the door slams shut behind her, leaving him alone with Blue who begins to prowl back to Klaus, and he hears a car start up and then leave.

Despite trying to keep up a façade of nonchalance, Klaus flinches when Blue comes close to him.

Blue’s eyes linger on Klaus, his lips pressed together in a tight line, and then he sits down and looks away.

Klaus slumps, deciding not to be fussy and accepts the brief respite, and falls into darkness.

###

He wakes up to pain. His body jerks before he’s even opened his eyes and he arches away from the pain; yet another cigarette being put out near his collarbone. Pink’s face, still free of that mask, swims above him.

This burning doesn’t last long. Seeing him awake, she flicks the cigarette aside and sits in the chair opposite him. In her hands is a book and she holds it up for him to see. _“Extra Ordinary_ by Vanya Hargreeves,” she reads. “Quite an interesting read, I’ve got to see. A lot of nice secrets in it.”

Klaus groans, his head tipping back. Behind him he sees a ghost. The man’s skin is frozen, his eyelashes white with frost, nose and cheeks red with frostbite. Klaus grimaces and hurries to look away, trying to block out his muttering in what he thinks might be Russian.

“She had quite a bit on you, too, since it seems that you didn’t want to talk about yourself.” Klaus can’t help but stiffen, eying her warily. “She wasn’t too nice, was she?” Her fingers pry the book open to a marked page. “Junkie. Liar. Manipulative. Irresponsible. Carless. Cruel. So you’re a liar, Klaus? You lied to your family for drugs?”

Klaus’ cheeks heat up with shame and he looks away. Pink reaches out, grabs his jaw in a bruising grip, and forces him to look her in the eye.

“So, Klaus, have you been lying to me?”

###

“You can scream all you like, Klaus,” says Pink. “No one can hear you, here. You can scream bloody murder and no help will come.”

There’s a knife in her hand. It glistens in the dim light of the warehouse and she traces the tip down his chest, resting it over his stomach.

“The only people you have is me and him. No one is coming to help you.”

She digs the knife in and Klaus screams.

###

Things take a massive turn for the worst, following that. Convinced that he is lying to her about knowing where Five is, any chances at convincing her to let him go has been thrown out of the window. She turns intense. Each punch, slap, or burn is accompanied by one of many insults written specifically in Vanya’s book. He can almost hear it in his siblings voices, echoing all around him, and then the ghosts begin to join in.

The ghosts had been filtering in slowly but surely. Mutilated corpses that he doesn’t need to be confirmed that they are these people’s past victims. They seem dazed, unnerved whenever Klaus looks at him, and when Pink calls him a liar, they join in. When Pink calls him a cheating junkie, they echo her.

It’s a non-stop chorus of every insult every one of his siblings has said, that his father has said, that strangers have said, and it wears him down surprisingly fast.

And plus, he learns that Pink is creative and seems to strongly dislike liars.

Out of one of the boxes comes a thin garrotte. Blue uses it. He tightens it around Klaus’ neck, stands behind him, and then puts all his weight behind it and pulls so tightly Klaus thinks the wire might slice clean through his neck and decapitate him. His hands and feet feel like static as he squirms in his chair. Black dots dance in his vision and they only loosen the garrotte when his eyes are rolling, seconds from passing out.

His lungs burn from the effort of trying to breathe and having it suddenly cut off for so long and his head swims. He can’t remember what they wanted from him in the beginning and he thinks they’re just torturing him now to try and cure their boredom.

“At least you were right about something,” she says. “No one will notice that you’re gone.”

Despite Klaus himself declaring this in a cocky tone earlier, Pink stating this now makes hopelessness unfurl in his chest like a void. How long has it been? Long enough to realise that he’s missing. And no one will notice he’s gone.

Pink sighs, thumb rubbing his cheekbone. Klaus flinches away.

“Do you think they’d find your body out here?” She asks. “Do you think it would take them long? Maybe in a week or so they’d realise you’ve not been around for a while. Another few days and they might start going out to try and find you. Little Five might realise what happened, and after even longer, they might stumble in here out of sheer luck, and see your rotting corpse. Or they’d find it in whatever gutter we throw it in.” She shrugs and leans back. Her caress turns to a backhand and Klaus groans, closing his eyes.

“Don’t listen to her, Klaus,” Ben says, stepping in front of her. “They’ll know by now and they’ll be looking for you.”

Pink wanders over to the boxes by Blue’s feet, rummaging around in it. She returns to his side with pliers, making no sound as she grabs one of his hands and forces his fingers to uncurl. Knowing where she’s going, Klaus starts to shake his head, protesting with loud, incoherent sounds, only to fall into a long yell when she unflinchingly pulls one of his nails off in a swift motion.

Klaus curls his hand into a fist, doubling over and rocking slightly as if trying to ride out the wave of pain. He tries his best to keep his fingers hidden in his fist when Pink tries to pull them flat again, but then she hits his head with the pliers and everything goes distant and fuzzy. She takes another nail, the one on his ring finger, and then she drops the pliers onto the dirty floor.

“You know, all of this? This isn’t because you won’t tell me where Five is,” she tells him, crouching down and resting her elbows on his knees. “This is because you’re a liar, Klaus. All of this is just a repercussion of your actions.”

Klaus shakes his head as if he can deny what she’s saying. She presses on.

“All the cheating and the lying you’ve done, stealing from your family when they try to help you, from innocent people just trying to get on with their days. All of the shit you’ve broken and not cared about, the stress you put your family through with each overdose. You brought this on yourself.”

Klaus hardly holds back a sob, screwing his face up and looking away. She grabs his jaw, forcing him to face her, but he keeps his eyes closed.

“Look at me, Klaus, or you’ll never look again.”

Klaus sobs. Rough and ugly and violent, jarring his aching body, and he pries his eyes open with great reluctance, forcing himself to meet her eyes even if he can hardly see through his tears.

“All of this is because of what you’ve done. You deserve this, Klaus. Don’t you?”

Klaus shakes his head as much as he can. Pink hums.

“I’m sure I can make you understand with time.”

###

Pink thumbs through pages of Vanya’s book, not paying any attention to Klaus’ sobbing when Blue towers over him, grabbing his fingers and pushing them back, back, back, further than they can go, until a snap echoes in the warehouse.

She doesn’t flinch when Klaus doubles over, vomiting on the floor when the pain and the withdrawals all becomes too much.

He feels like reality is all blurring together in one haze of constant, white-hot pain. He has no idea what is happening except for the fact that there is always pain.

“I should make you clean that up,” she mutters, nose wrinkled with distaste as he spits. Blue grabs the back of his chair, pulling him away from the mess so that neither he or Pink accidentally step in it when they prowl circles around him.

She eyes him for several moments before looking to Blue and then something behind Klaus. She nods and so Blue picks up a knife stained in Klaus’ own blood, cuts the duct tape off his wrists, and tangles his hand into his hair.

His vision nearly blacks out when Blue forces himself to his feet and he struggles to scramble alongside him, knees weak and buckling.

“At least we can get you cleaned up a little,” Pink murmurs, shoes clicking evenly as she follows them. Blue is leading him towards a large plastic box which he realises is full of water. He doesn’t even process what that might entail until Blue forces himself onto his knees in front of it and then forces his head under the water.

His tortured fingers scramble along the edge of the box, attempting and failing to push himself out of the water. Blue’s hand remains like a vice, tangled in his hair on the back of his head, holding him in place.

Just when he thinks he’s going to pass out, Blue tears his head out of the water. He gasps for breath, only managing a couple before he’s forced back under. The process repeats itself for so long that Klaus loses count; stuck hyperventilating because he can’t even tell when he is and isn’t under the water but just knowing that he needs to breathe, now, until his head is once more pushed into the box, forehead hitting the bottom, and this time when everything gets painful and dark, Blue doesn’t take him back out of the water.

He stops struggling.

###

He wakes up tied to the chair once more.

Pink is crouching in front of him, twisting a cigarette out on his inner thigh.

His lungs burn. Everything burns. He isn’t entirely sure of what is happening. He loses control of his bladder.

Pink makes a noise of irritation, standing up and stepping away from him. He hears water slosh, presumably from the bucket full that they’d been using to steadily waterboard him every so often.

“You could have asked,” she tells him. He doubts that, whether he had mentioned his sudden need for a bathroom or not, that the outcome would be any different.

“You’ve gotten this filthy,” she adds, and her hand tugs the towel around his waist. It comes off easily, hardly clinging on rather than simply trapped between his thighs and the chair. She discards it on the floor, leaving him sitting there, naked and feeling, somehow, a hundred times more vulnerable. As if the towel clinging valiantly to his hips had been like some kind of shield. It was the only thing he had in this situation and now he has nothing. He’s beaten, bloody, half-delirious and tied to a chair in some abandoned warehouse, and now he’s naked. He’s completely, entirely at their mercy; he has nothing else to give them.

He tries to shift slightly in a pathetic attempt to hide himself, not that either of them seem particularly intent on talking about his nakedness.

“You’re filthy,” she tells him, and it’s the only warning he has before a wave of water hits him. It’s cold, painfully cold, and hits him with a force. Blue had thrown the entire bucket at him, as if trying to wash him off.

“Please,” Klaus whispers. “Please, just – leave me, please, please.”

“Where would I go, then?” Pink asks him, feigning genuine curiosity. Klaus tries to raid his muddled mind. Then a thought hits him.

“Meritech,” he mumbles. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. For all the times he’s bitten it, it probably is swollen.

“What was that?”

“Meritech,” he repeats. “Meritech. ‘s a lab. Five – Five was looking there. Something about an eye – a prosthetic eye. ‘s all I know, please, please, please-“

His rambling turns to quiet crying, his head shaking side to side. Pink comes close; he sees her feet near his. She strokes his cheek. “Was that so hard?” Then she takes a step back and, to Blue, she says; “I changed the lock on the old broom closet here ages ago. Lock him in there.”

Klaus doesn’t process the words. He lets himself be dragged backwards in the chair to an old door, and lets Blue haul him inside the room. He even lets him close the door and listens to it lock, and he listens to their retreating footsteps; listens to a car start up and drive away. And then he opens his eyes.

The broom closet he is in is tiny and it is dark. He can’t see a single thing, but if he was to sit on the edge of the chair and lean forwards, his head would hit the opposite wall. He can reach the walls either side of him and behind him, too, without much effort, and he realises then how small the place is.

He tries to keep calm, but the fear small, dark places bring him is instinctual and uncontrollable. He’s cold, even colder than he was in there, and he’s alone except for the moaning, groaning ghosts of Pink and Blue’s victims, and they want him dead, too, and he wants out – why won’t Reginald let him out?

The walls close in on him. He can’t move; can’t breathe. He can’t even thrash out when the ghosts descend upon him. All of a sudden, he’s young again, and Reginald is on the other side of the door and won’t let him out no matter how hard Klaus screams or how much Klaus begs.

###

The door opens.

Klaus is shaking. He hardly registers the door open. He’s freezing, and everything hurts, and he can’t breathe. He feels utterly exhausted – more exhausted than he’s ever felt before.

He’s dragged back out into the warehouse. He sees the way the floor changes, how light filters to his eyes and he can see again. He can’t bring his eyes up from the floor. A chair scrapes in front of him and Pink sits down. He sees her shoes in front of him. Blue is doing something. He can hear him moving around, see his feet. He’s setting something up.

“So,” Pink says. “Five wasn’t there. I think we’re going to send him a little message.” She shrugs. “Or not. We’ll see how I feel.”

Klaus forces his eyes up at that. Beside Pink, Blue is setting up a camera, facing Klaus.

“But for now, I think we need to talk about how you’re still a liar, Klaus.”

Liar. He flinches at the word and shakes his head. He isn’t a liar, he isn’t, Five was at Meritech before and other than that he doesn’t know where else he might be, but he isn’t lying, he isn’t, he isn’t-

But Pink thinks he is, and so nothing else matters.

“You know, I ought to take out your tongue,” she coos, twisting a cigarette into the skin just below his left eye, too close, too close, too close- “I have the tools. It’d stop you lying, at least, and stop that pathetic crying.”

“Please,” Klaus sobs, only proving her right. He wants to shake his head but he’s terrified of dislodging her grip on the cigarette and sending it upright, right into his eye, and it’s him having to force himself to stay still now. “Please, please, I’m not – I’m not lying, I’m not-“

“There where is Five?”

Another sob falls past his lips and he whines. “I don’t know! I don’t! Please!”

She takes the cigarette away, eying it, and Klaus doubles over on himself.

“And why,” she asks, “should I believe that? Your siblings believed you, Klaus, and what did you do?” She grabs his jaw, raising her eyebrows. “What did you do, Klaus? Use your words.”

Klaus’ tongue is heavy in his mouth and he struggles to make it work, but eventually it does. “ _Lie_ ,” he whispers. Pink lets go of him.

“Exactly.” She takes a few steps away from him, disinterested. “Klaus. Do you deserve this?”

This time, when she asks this question, Klaus nods his head miserably. He does, because he’s a cheater, because he manipulates anyone to get what he wants, because he _lies_.

“That’s right, Klaus,” says Pink, and Klaus sobs.

###

“Look up.”

Klaus lifts his head lazily. He feels numb. Pink is messing with the camera in front of him.

“What do you say about sending a little message to the others, huh? You could say your goodbyes.”

Klaus’ heart leaps into his throat. “W-what?”

Pink gives him a look half between pitying and half between disappointed. “Well, it’s not like they’re going to see you again,” she says, and she looks almost confused at how Klaus hasn’t caught on yet. “It’s been a while. As much as I love seeing you finally catch on and understand, I can’t keep you forever.”

Klaus’ mouth moves silently, words stuck deep in his throat. He knew, of course, that they were going to kill him. He knew that. And yet fear strikes him again and he finds himself shaking his head.

“No, no – you – you can’t – I –“

“What?” Says Pink. “Would you rather stay with me?” She looks him up and down; naked and covered in bruises and cuts and burns, with broken ribs and broken fingers, shivering and ill and only half-coherent half of the time. “You are getting quiet obedient. Maybe I could find a way to keep you.”

Klaus shakes his head. He isn’t sure what is worse; dying or being stuck with her and Blue for the rest of his life. Both are equally horrible ideas and he doesn’t want either of them. He finds himself starting to cry again.

He doesn’t want to die. He really doesn’t. But he really doesn’t want to be with them for any longer.

Pink gives him a look. “Well, stop saying dumb shit, then. You can’t expect me not to kill you and not to keep you, Klaus. What else do you expect? To just leave?”

Something shatters inside of him when she says that. She makes the idea sound so utterly ridiculous; so idiotic and childish and foolish of him to believe such a thing. How could he have ever believed he would leave this warehouse a free man? He is so stupid. So utterly stupid.

Pink runs her fingers through his hair and he’s reminded of Grace doing this when he was ill as a child, or when he went to her after a nightmare.

But Grace never pulled his hair to force his head back, exposing his red and bruised throat, to put out a cigarette on it.

###

Pink is standing in front of him. She’s blocking him from view of the camera. Blue is hovering over Klaus’ shoulders. Both of them have their masks on.

“I tried reaching you, Five,” Pink says. “You know you can’t outrun us forever. Your best chance is to turn yourself in. The Handler is still willing to talk this out, Five. Lucky for you. But, I also know how stubborn you are, so I have something that might motivate you.”

She steps aside, letting the camera see Klaus in all his glory. He wondered if it would only show his shoulders and up, or if it would show all of him. He is suddenly reminded of his nudity once more and he looks away from the camera in shame.

“Klaus and I have gotten close, but there’s only so long I’m willing to keep him for. He’s still alive, and if you want him to stay that way, then you ought to come and talk to us. Look at the camera.”

Klaus can’t bring himself to do it. He shakes his head, keeps his eyes planted firmly on the cut bleeding sluggishly on his thigh. He can’t remember when he got that.

Pink holds her head next to his ear, cold mask pressing against his clammy skin, and she whispers too low for the camera to hear what she says.

_“Look them in the eye, Klaus. You have one chance to be honest with them. Don’t die a cowardly liar.”_

_Liar. Liar. Liar._

He flinches at the word, expecting – something to happen. A punch, a burn, to be strangled or drowned, to have his fingers twisted at an even worse angle or to have a nail ripped off. Nothing happens though besides Pink resting her hand on his tense shoulder.

Klaus looks up at the camera. There is a red light blinking slowly at him, like the steady drip of blood, and Klaus feels sick.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” Pink asks him.

He has many things to say, but he isn’t sure what to voice.

_Help me. I’m sorry. It’s a trap. I’m fine. I don’t want to die. I won’t lie again. Please._

His lips move over the words silent, uncertain, guilty, afraid.

He says nothing.

Pink shrugs. “You know how to reach us,” she says, and then Blue walks around the camera to stop filming. “You still have your tongue,” she tells Klaus. Klaus just closes his eyes and hangs his head. She turns to Blue. “Go put him into the broom closet again. We’ll throw this through a window, or something.”

Klaus straightens at that, looking frantically between Pink and Blue. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, no, I can – I can stay here, please, please, leave me here-“

Pink eyes him curiously, slipping off her mask in near unison with Blue. They both share a look at Klaus’ frantic rambling, but nonetheless Klaus finds himself being dragged backwards into the closet.

It is small. It is dark. It is cold. He is alone. He isn’t alone; they are there. They always are. Reginald locks the door.

Klaus screams.

###

He’s still muttering by the time Blue pulls him out of the closet. Frantic mutterings directed at the ghosts, at Reginald.

And then his head is being thrust underwater and he is suddenly back in the warehouse, on his knees, with Blue’s hand in his hair and holding him in that box of water. He splutters, thrashing weakly, and then he’s pulled back out. He’s shoved back under, pulled out, over and over again until his lungs are burning and he doesn’t know where he is and is that Blue behind him or is it Reginald in the mausoleum doorway? He doesn’t know.

There are kicks being sent into his ribs, into his stomach. He’s still coughing in a puddle of water on the cold floor, vision swimming between sights of ghosts and cold walls and Reginald and lighters and punches and-

There’s a snap and pain lances through his leg, white-hot and fiery. He thinks he might cry out, but he’s not sure. He doesn’t know what’s happening.

Hands grab his upper arms and haul him upright and the world tilts and then caves in on itself.

###

Pink holds a bottle of water to his lips and he guzzles it down greedily. Some water runs down his chin, splattering his stomach and his thighs, and then, when the bottle is empty, Pink takes it away.

“What was that?” She urges. Klaus swallows. His jaw hurts.

“T-thank you,” he murmurs, hanging his head.

###

Pink sits down in the chair across from him. “So, how about we have a little chat?” She crosses one leg over the other and Klaus forces his eyes open. “Why don’t you tell me about those little freak-outs you have? What did your daddy do to you?”

Klaus froze. His body tensed painfully and his breath hitched in his throat. Pink raised an eyebrow. “He locked you somewhere. Were you being bad? Already such a bad person at so young? Your daddy tried to help and discipline you and you were ungrateful.”

Klaus shakes his head, throat working to try and deny the accusations. His head felt a mess. He knew the story and Pink and Blue didn’t. He knew what had happened. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong; he knew he didn’t deserve to be locked in that mausoleum.

But Pink was in his head. She was in every crevice of his brain, every shadow of his mind, and _had_ Reginald been right? Did he deserve that like he deserved this?

“No,” he whines, voice thick in his throat. “No, no, no, please-“

“So ungrateful,” mutters Pink, standing up. “If only we’d have found you sooner.”

Klaus just continues to shake his head, moaning futile please. He doesn’t – he doesn’t know what’s going on. He can’t decipher between his own thoughts and hers and everything hurts and he’s so tired, so physically and mentally _exhausted_.

He doesn’t have a clue on how long he’s been stuck here. Some things are consistent, but the majority of things are inconsistent enough to keep him constantly confused. He has no idea whether it’s day or night. No idea if he’s slept or not. He hasn’t eaten. The most water he gets is when they decide to drown him and he swallows mouthfuls of it. The bucket of water stays always full, it seems, because every time he has to relieve himself or every time he throws up, they throw the water on him in some mock attempt to clean him. All it does is leave him soaking and freezing cold.

His leg is broken. He can’t remember it happening. He tries his best not to jar it, but it’s nearly impossible when he’s pulled out of his chair and has to scramble alongside Blue to the box of water only to have his head held under it, or when they punch him and his whole body flinches, or when he finds himself in the broom closet, delirious, and he can’t help but thrash wildly.

Time seems to stretch forever. He’s sure weeks must have passed by now. He falls unconscious and wakes up to pain, only to fall unconscious and wake up, again and again and again, and he isn’t always sure of what is hurting. Is it his leg? His knees? His ribs, maybe? His mangled fingers? His abused neck? All of it?

He isn’t sure. He doesn’t really care. It hurts, but it always hurts, and there’s no point longing for it to stop.

The worst of it, however, comes whenever she mentions lies. Klaus knows, by now, that she despises liars, and whenever she mentions lies he knows to expect the pain, knows to apologise afterwards, knows that he’s brought it upon himself. He’s a liar and everyone knows he is – if someone didn’t know, then Vanya’s book made sure that they found out.

He knows that, now.

###

Pink leaves often. Klaus doesn’t know why. He doesn’t care. It leaves him and Blue alone, and though Blue is large; taller than Klaus let alone Pink, he might seem more intimidating, but Klaus knows that Pink is worse.

Blue – he doesn’t like Blue. Blue still puts all his weight behind the garrotte and still makes his bones crack beneath his feet or his fists, still holds him beneath the water until he stops moving.

But when they’re alone, Blue holds water to his lips and, once, the night (day?) shortly following his leg breaking, he gives him a couple of painkillers when Pink leaves. It hardly does much, but it takes the edge off and it’s good enough.

Klaus can’t remember what he says – maybe he asks if Klaus needs the bathroom, or if he wants more water, or something – but it makes Klaus cry. It’s too normal; too nice.

###

Klaus wakes up, as expected, to pain.

He’s being forced onto his legs and he forgets, briefly, about his broken one and tries to hurry alongside Blue, only to crumple with a cry. Blue catches him none too gently and continues hauling him along. Klaus wonders what’s going on. They’re heading towards the door.

Are they going to take him outside to kill him? He starts crying again. He doesn’t want to die. He really doesn’t, but he does want to see outside once more. He’d been afraid they would shoot him in the warehouse and leave his corpse there and he’d be trapped there as a ghost, confined to that abandoned warehouse. At least outside he can see the sky and he can pretend that he’s free.

But just before the door, they pause.

Blue holds him up as Pink puts duct tape around his mouth, and then holds his wrists together behind his back and ties them together. Then she goes one step further and covers his eyes with it and he feels his heart sink.

He feels dirt beneath his burnt soles and wind sends goosebumps along his skin. He hears the rustle of leaves and hears a car door open, and then a hand on his head is shoving him forwards and he realises he’s being coaxed into a car trunk.

Klaus bites his tongue and falls into it. Old wounds are jarred and his leg sings in pain and he’s so tired. All of a sudden, Klaus finds that he doesn’t really care where they’re taking him, whether or not they’re going to kill him. He thinks, actually, that he’d prefer it if they just got it over with. The idea of Pink trying to find a way to keep him terrifies him.

He does wish that he got to see outside, though. Wishes that he had said something on the tape to his siblings. He knows that they wouldn’t sacrifice Five for Klaus. Knows that they hadn’t come to save him and they wouldn’t, not until it was too late, at least.

At least, Klaus thinks, he has Ben, leaning back into the trunk and trying to tell him reassuring things that he doesn’t believe.

So Klaus lets himself fall back into darkness and a part of him hopes that he won’t wake up again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I followed it up and here you have: the siblings' POV and the rescue! Enjoy!

Klaus has no idea how long he spends in the trunk. He drifts in and out of consciousness. Each corner makes his head hit the side of the trunk, makes all his wounds ache. His ribs are tight around his lungs and he can’t take a full breath in without flinching, and his broken hand is stuck beneath his back, and his broken leg is compacted into this tight space roughly, every so often being pushed against the trunk when they slow down and he slides forwards. The pain is nauseating and he only stops himself from being sick because of the fact that there is duct tape on his mouth.

He doesn’t know where they’re taking him. Maybe they decided to keep him as their own personal punching bag. Maybe they are just taking him elsewhere, somewhere that it is easier to dispose of his body. Further into the woods? No, they’re driving too fast to be on that kind of road. Further out of the city? That seems likely. The car rarely stops; there isn’t traffic lights.

If he was alright with being left by himself, he might try and ask Ben to poke his head out and figure out where they are, where they’re going. But he doesn’t want to be alone and he finds that he doesn’t really care. The car will stop, and there will be pain, and it is inevitable.

He drifts. His head hits the floor. His leg is trapped between his body and the trunk and he sobs in pain. He’s cold. He’s still soaking wet; has been since the first drowning session, and the cold reaches into the marrow of his bones and he wonders if he has hypothermia. Not that it matters. He can’t stop shaking but whether or not that is from pain, exhaustion, fear, withdrawals or hypothermia is uncertain.

The car begins to slow an intermediate amount of time later, and then it stops. He hears the car doors open and thud closed and then footsteps come close. The trunk is opened and Klaus flinches away from the cool air that rushes in to meet him, accompanied by a hand that reaches for his hair.

He is pulled out and he makes an attempt at twisting himself just so in an attempt to favour his less-hurt body parts; he tries to use the hand with unbroken fingers to push himself up and he tries to get his unbroken leg out first. It’s cruel, though, that he’s pulled out in a way that he has no choice but to unfurl his broken leg and fumble clumsily to get it over the edge of the trunk, and then he’s being pulled forward. He tries to stand on his broken leg and falls immediately to the floor, other leg dragging out of the trunk.

Beneath him, he feels a road. Stones dig into his skin. It’s raining. He’s too busy whining uncontrollably, gasping for air against the pain, to care.

He hardly has time to think about it. He’s forced upright, burnt feet dragging over the small stones that dig into his skin, and he’s stumbling blindly after the fist in his hair. The stones turn to dirt and leaves and tree roots that he trips over multiple times. He feels as if his leg must be hanging on by splinters at this rate. He’s almost glad he can’t see it.

Then, after too long, the hand is gone and he falls to his knees and then doubles over, forehead hitting a tree root. He moans, curling his most uninjured hand into a fist, his body tense.

He is pulled upright by his hair.

“Turns out your siblings don’t care what we do with you,” Pink says, voice cool by his ear. “I guess you were right. We really got the wrong person.”

Klaus whines and he can’t help himself. They had sent that message. His siblings had seen it – they had seen him, beaten and hostage, and they hadn’t cared. Of course, Five was more important, he knows they can’t risk putting Five in danger over their junkie brother who really should have had this coming, but still. He had hoped they would have come for him.

“It’s been nice, though,” Pink continues, undeterred by his crying. “I feel like I’ve really gotten to know you. I did consider keeping you, really. I think, with a little more work, you could turn out great. Redeem yourself a little.” Her fingers run through his hair as if she’s stroking a dog, as if Klaus isn’t naked and bloody and kneeling on a forest floor and crying. “But I don’t have the patience for liars.” He flinches. Her fingers tangle in his hair and keep him in place. “So, it’s been nice while it lasted, Klaus. I did tell them where they could find your body, if that makes it any easier.”

Her hand disappears. He hears the rustle of clothing and then feels something press against the back of his head. A gun. Klaus, despite thinking it not possible, starts crying harder, shaking his head. “Please,” he tries to say, but the words are muffled and incoherent.

He wants to see Ben, suddenly. He just wants to see Ben one more time. He can hear him rambling reassuring words, becoming more frantic and panicked.

He supposes he’ll see him soon enough, though.

He listens to the cock of her gun, her nail running over the trigger, and listens to her step back. She probably doesn’t want to get any blood on her clothes, he supposes.

Then she pulls the trigger.

There’s a deafening crack and Klaus bowls over, jumping half out of his skin. He feels stunned, his ears ringing maddeningly. Everything is white-hot, deafening ringing, and it feels like static.

It takes him several moments to realise that he is still alive.

Stepping to the side that she didn’t shoot by, she says; “whoops. I missed. Maybe it’s a sign I ought to keep you after all.” Then, her hand tangles in his hair and her lips ghost his better ear and she says, cold and slick like the blade of a knife, “you are _mine_ , Klaus.”

Her voice is almost entirely drowned out by the ringing in his skull. He hardly processes it when he’s forced back onto his feet and when the dirt beneath his feet turns to the road once more. They don’t go back into the car although he suspects they’re near it; he can hear them lean back against it.

Klaus feels utterly drained. He keeps swaying, almost falling over and struggling to remain conscious. He falls over at one point and remains on the floor until Pink comes close and nudges his head with her foot. “Get up, Klaus,” she orders. Klaus hardly finds the energy to groan. It’s not stopped raining. He decides that he wouldn’t quite mind hypothermia overcoming him at this moment. Pink crouches down beside him, hand grabbing his jaw. “Get up, or I’ll cut your legs off if you aren’t going to use them.”

Klaus’ body tenses. He knows he had seen a saw in one of their boxes of torture tools in the warehouse. He knows she’ll go through with it. He moans pitifully, shaking his head in her grasp. She lets go of his face and steps back.

“Then stand up,” she echoes.

He’s so tired. With his hands tied behind his back still, it’s hard to try and do it. He shifts slowly, pulling his uninjured leg beneath him. From here, he doesn’t know where to go. He doesn’t want to even twitch his other leg. He pauses, tries to think it through, but his brain is short-circuiting and he can’t form logical thoughts easily.

With a sigh, Pink walks away and he hears the car door open, then closing. She comes to his side, places a hand on the knee of his injured leg, and then he feels a blade, sharp and serrated, rest on his leg. He jolts, the blade slides back and cuts his skin with ease, tears through it like a butcher, and he thrashes wildly, yelling incoherent sounds. Disregarding the pain it brings for the horror of what pain might come, he all but throws himself onto his feet, swaying dangerously.

“See, was that so hard?” Pink sighs, and he hears the saw, or the knife – whatever – clatter to the ground. “Now, be good and stay like that.”

###

“So, a mausoleum, huh?”

Klaus finds himself being forced out of his half-conscious state. He’s still standing, all of his weight on his good leg though he finds himself becoming quickly tired trying to balance like that. But he’s too scared to fall over; knows what will happen if he does. So he lingers in some kind of trance where everything except for the ringing in his ears is distant and muted slightly.

“How does that work?”

Klaus wills himself not to move, not to react.

He had broken and he had told her. He knows it was arguably one of the most stupid things he could do – telling his torturer his worst fear – but she had relented, had promised she wouldn’t put him back in that closet again if he just told her, like some reward for his honesty.

So he had told her; spat the words out between gasps and sobs.

And then she had put him back into the broom closet.

“Are they ugly things, ghosts?”

Klaus, reluctantly, nods. It’s better to be honest with her. She hums thoughtfully, fingers drumming along the car. Then, to Blue, she says; “think there are any mausoleums nearby?”

###

He isn’t quite sure how to describe his current state. He feels like he can’t breathe, but his breathing is (relatively) steady save for slight trembles. He feels like he’s on the verge of a panic attack, but he’s numb. His body shakes with fear and yet the fear feels like someone else.

It’s weird and disorienting and confusing.

He’s still standing. It stopped raining not long ago, maybe. His head hangs limply as if he’s falling asleep. Pink and Blue discuss between themselves in voices quiet enough that he can’t hear them over the ringing echoing in his skull.

And then one of them comes close, takes hold of his shoulder, and he’s being shoved back into the trunk unceremoniously. By the time the trunk closes, he’s already unconscious.

###

“Wake up. Come on, Klaus, wake up.”

Something taps his cheek. He flinches and that’s a good enough sign that he’s awake. A hand tangles in his hair and he’s tumbling out of the trunk onto fiery limbs. He moans, the sound getting caught in his tight throat, and sways beside Blue.

“Here he is,” says Pink, voice raised. He isn’t sure who she’s talking to. The hand in his hair disappears and he crumples to the ground instantly, unable to catch himself or move into a position that catches him softly. He can’t bring himself to care.

He is oblivious to the tension around himself.

There’s a cough; someone clears their throat.

“Well, I’m here now. Let him go.”

His breath catches in his throat. Five’s voice rings in his ears.

###

Five is somewhat pissed off, and rightfully so. He chooses to say that he's angry rather than on edge, because being on edge would mean that things are out of his control, which they aren't. He is simply running out of time. 

He knows that he is searching for a Harold Jenkins, and they know, now, that Harold Jenkins is also going under the name of Leonard, and he, according to Allison who had grown a few shades paler upon seeing his criminal records, is dating Vanya. It's a cold realisation; that the man who causes the Apocalypse is working to alienate his sister from them, and he wonders why he could never find Vanya's body. Perhaps she had been too close to him. He is leaning towards the idea that Leonard must end up using Vanya as a hostage, thus rebanding the Umbrella Academy in their final moments before everything ends. And with this knowledge, everyone is spurred on to try and fix this. 

One thing, however, doesn't make sense to Five.

Hazel and Cha-Cha. The Commission as a whole; they had been eerily silent since they had shot up the Academy. He had been expecting them to once more lunge out for him, expected attacks at any and every potential moment, but it had been radio silent since. 

Five should have known better.

All of them, save for Vanya and Klaus, are in the living room, with Five explaining how Harold is Leonard, and Leonard is with Vanya and has been undoubtedly manipulating her for days now, trying to alienate them all and using Vanya against them. 

Then Grace walks in.

"Sorry to interrupt, dears," she says with a smile. "But I recieved this through the door five minutes ago." In her hands she holds up a simple disc in plastic casing. "I checked to make sure it was safe and there is nothing unusual about it. Five, dear, it has your name on it."

Five stills. His eyes narrow and, in the blink of an eye, he stands in front of Grace and plucks it from her hands.

"What is it? Five?" Luther asks, sitting upright. He still looks rough; no doubt has a growing migraine behind his eyes after deciding to drain the liquor cabinet and pass out in the living room. 

"It's a DVD," he murmurs, turning it in his hands. Save for his name written across it in red ink, it is a simple, plain disc. He recognises the handwriting, however, as Cha-Cha's sloping scrawl, carelessly done before being chucked into the plastic wallet. "Mom, can you go check the security cameras?"

He doesn't wait for an answer; teleporting to the television still set up from where the others had watched the security footage of Reginald's death. He takes out the disc, holding it carefully in his hands and eying it as if he expects it to blow up or grow blades and cut him, and then he slides it into the television.

"Five, what is it?" Diego asks, and they all come closer, crowding him and the TV. 

"It's from Cha-Cha," he says, turning the television on and fiddling with the settings. 

"The ones who shot up the house?" Allison replies, eyebrows raising. Five nods.

"A message for me. I wonder why she didn't just attack again," he murmurs thoughtfully, and then presses play and steps back so the others can see the screen.

There are a few seconds of static before an image appears. It is Cha-Cha, wearing her familiar mask, and taking up almost the entire screen. Behind her, Five can see a dark, long room. It looks abandoned, he notices.

"I tried reaching you, Five," she begins, voice filtering through. "You know you can't outrun us forever. Your best chance is to turn yourself in. The Handler is still willing to talk this out, Five, lucky for you. But, I also know how stubborn you are, so I have something that might motivate you."

Five's eyebrows furrow and he watches the screen intently as Cha-Cha steps to the side. The camera goes blurry, and then it focuses on a different person.

Even with his head tilted away from the camera, Five recognises him instantly. Klaus. 

"What the fuck," says Diego. "Is that - is that Klaus?"

Five holds up a hand to quiet him, his lips pressed together. The camera shows from his mid-torso up, and it is enough. His skin is pale and glistening with either sweat or water, his body trembling violently, and his skin is littered in bruises and burns and cuts, which are all still bleeding. Five can't take in all of the wounds and their severity, there's too many, but he can tell that nothing looks fatal, even if it looks as if his throat has been cut multiple times. He recognises the wounds; knows exactly how Cha-Cha and Hazel, whom he can see hovering behind Klaus, would have done them.

"Klaus and I have gotten close, but there's only so long I'm willing to keep him for," Cha-Cha says, standing right by Klaus' side. He's still alive, and if you want him to stay that way you ought to come and talk to us." And, to Klaus, nudging his shoulder, she demands; "look at the camera."

Klaus shakes his head. His cheeks are pink with embarrassment and he can't seem to sit still, trembling so violently. His hair is wet and covers his face from this angle. 

"Five," says Allison, sounding breathy. "How do they have him?"

Five doesn't respond; he keeps watching. Pink sighs, crouching down to place her head near Klaus' ear. He can't hear whatever it is she's saying, but he gets the gist because Klaus flinches, making a quiet noise in his throat, and lifts his head to look into the camera. 

His face is bruised. There is a cut beneath his right eye and cigarette burn beneath his left. His quivering lips are split and Five can see traces of blood clinging to his teeth. His eyes are wide, exhausted, afraid; red, lined by smudged mascara and shadows. Each blink dislodges a tear from his eyes, running swiftly down his cheek and falling off his jaw.

But he's alive. 

"Do you have anything to say?" Cha-Cha asks him, hand tightening on his shoulder. Klaus' eyes bounce wildly between the camera and her, as if expecting her to speak for him, and then his lips move over the beginnings of silent words that are never voiced, because he blinks and shakes his head and looks down. His chest heaves with a raspy breath and his shoulders tense even further.

Cha-Cha shrugs and looks up to the camera. “You know how to reach us,” she says, and then Hazel walks forwards, disappears behind the camera, and it stops on the last pause.

It is a short video; concise, straight to the point, as Cha-Cha always is. It tells him what she wants, tells him why he ought to give it to her, and that’s it. That’s all he needs.

“Five,” says Diego, his voice low. “What the fuck?”

Five sighs. “Cha-Cha and Hazel must have gotten him at some point,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “I guess they expected us to notice he was missing quicker and would come to find him, but when we didn’t, they decided to send this message.”

“We have to get him,” Allison states, looking between them all. “How do we find him?”

Five eyes the last frame as if it might reveal all of the answers to all of his questions. He knows how to find them; or, at the very least, he knows how to reach them and agree to meet some place. There isn’t enough information in the video to give him a hint as to where they are other than an abandoned warehouse, and there are plenty of those. They’d be searching for hours before they found him.

“Is it a trap?” Luther asks. Diego shoots him a look.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You saw him, did that look like a trap?” He snaps, gesturing angrily towards the television. “Come on, Luther.”

“I’m just saying,” Luther defends. “They might have something planned for us. We ought to think about this.”

Five presses his lips together. Hazel and Cha-Cha don’t need Klaus alive – not anymore, at least. He’s already served their purpose of getting his attention. For all he knows, they shot him as soon as they stopped recording. Klaus is probably already dead.

But can he take that risk?

“How do we reach them, Five?” Diego demands, coming up to his side.

Five keeps his eyes on the television. When had Klaus last been seen? When he helped him at Meritech. And Meritech had burnt down not that long ago. The video had been taken recently, then, assuming Klaus had told them that Five had been hanging around the lab. But still; there were hours between then and now. Hours in which his corpse had been discarded.

He had seen the look in Klaus’ eyes. Other than Meritech, he has no information to give them, and he’s been with them for days. He’s wrung dry. They have no reason at all to keep Klaus alive any longer than they took to record that video.

“Five-“ Growls Diego, grabbing his shoulder. Five shrugs him off.

“I’m thinking-“

“What is there to think about? Look at him-“

“Diego, Hazel and Cha-Cha are difficult to deal with. They are the best of the best – behind me, of course. This video could have been made days ago. He could be dead by now and this might be a trap. I need to figure this out.” He doesn’t mean it to be cold and snappy, but the others don’t understand the kind of people Hazel and Cha-Cha like he does; don’t know the kind of danger they are and the games they play. Of course he wants to find Klaus, but he needs to be sure that he isn’t going to find a body.

His stomach twists at the thought. He still has the images of his siblings’ bodies burned into his mind, and he had come back with the intention of averting this. But he had come back, brought Hazel and Cha-Cha with him, and dropped his sibling into their hands.

He grinds his teeth together, eyes his siblings lingering in the room.

“Allison, phone Vanya. Try and find her or get her here; we can’t leave her with Harold. I… I’ll reach out to Hazel and Cha-Cha.”

Diego relaxes at that, seeming pleased with his answer.

“And then what?” Asks Luther.

“Then? Then we go find Klaus, and we kill Harold Jenkins.”

With that, he disappears from his siblings view, instead reappearing in a seemingly random phone booth outside a seemingly random motel. He knows better.

He picks up the phone, types in six numbers, and lifts it to his ear.

It only rings twice.

“Five.”

“Where is my brother?”

There’s a huff of air, amused, on the other side. “So sentimental, Five,” Cha-Cha comments, almost disapprovingly. “He’s still alive.”

“Let me hear him.”

“I’m afraid he’s currently out of it,” she says. “It’d be rude to wake him, but he’s still alive. Not for much longer, though.”

“Where?”

Cha-Cha hums. She gives an address, one Five vaguely recognises as some road outside of the city. “Meet us there in five hours.”

She hangs up on him and Five exhales slowly, glaring daggers at the phone in his hand. He ought to be relieved; Klaus is alive and Cha-Cha is willing to meet him in person, though that is only if he trusts her word. He isn’t sure that he does.

###

They have a plan. It makes him feel slightly better.

They have five hours to meet Hazel and Cha-Cha. It will take them two hours to drive to the destination they want to meet. They will go – they being, quite literally, all of them.

Allison phoned Vanya. She had almost been unable to get through to her, still simmering from earlier, but she managed to explain the situation – at least vaguely – and Vanya is already on her way back. They will take two cars. Luther and Diego will be ready for a fight, if need be, and Allison and Vanya will focus on getting Klaus and driving back home with him. If nothing else, then Allison will be forced to use her powers to gain the upper hand in the situation. Five knows she doesn’t want to do it, but it might end up as a situation where she either does it or doesn’t and instead watches everyone, or at least a few of her siblings, die. Five knows which choice she would pick in the end.

He doesn’t like the idea of Vanya being there, what with the fact that she has no way to defend herself, but if it ends up in a fight then they might need everyone there, and he still needs _someone_ to be able to get Klaus out of there as quickly as possible. He doubts Hazel and Cha-Cha have been nice to him since recording the video.

They will deal with Harold once they all make it out alive.

The plan, he thinks, is pretty shit, but it is also all they have, so it will have to do.

Vanya arrives an hour later. She looks – Five can’t quite tell. Worried, obviously, but more alive than he thinks he has ever seen her.

“What happened?” She asks, sounding nearly breathless as she hurries into the living room, and only then does she seem to process her sudden entrance and grow shy once more. “I – uh, Allison said about – about Klaus?”

Five nods. Whiskey swirls in the glass held loosely from his fingers. “The people that shot the house up kidnapped Klaus,” he tells her, eyes flicking up. “We’re going to go get him back.” His eyes flick to the clock hanging on the wall. “We’re leaving in a couple of hours, so listen close.”

He relays the plan. For the most part, Vanya just seems shocked that she’s being included in this, especially when Five leans forwards on the bar.

“We need you here for this, Vanya,” he tells her. “No matter what happens, you get Klaus if no one else can, and you get him out of there. Put him in whatever car and just drive back home.”

She looks a little pale, but she nods nonetheless. “I – I will, I promise. But, just one thing – how did no one notice he was gone?” She asks, looking throughout the suddenly guilty and shameful expressions. “You said he was gone for days, Five, how did no one notice?”

“We were busy,” Five mutters, gut writhing with that familiar feeling of dread. “He’s hardly around anyway; we didn’t notice. But we know now, and we’re going to help.”

Vanya presses her lips together, looking unconvinced slightly, but she nods.

###

The drive is tense.

No one speaks. Allison, Vanya and Luther are in the other car while Five sits with Diego, whose knuckles are pale around the steering wheel.

“I’m going to kill them,” he mutters.

“You better not until I’ve spoken to them,” Five warns. “You might fuck up are chances.”

Diego’s jaw locks and his teeth grind together absently. “Fine,” he spits. “But they’re dying today.”

Five turns to look out the window, watching buildings fly past. “Yes,” he agrees. “They are.”

###

They get there with time to spare, but Five sees Hazel and Cha-Cha’s car appear in the distance; sees two figures leaning against it casually, while one moves around the trunk.

“Stop here,” mutters Five, leaning forwards. “Come out, but stay back.”

Diego grunts his acknowledgement. He stops the car and the two of them get out and, following closely behind, Allison stops her car and her, Luther and Vanya get out and hang back with Diego.

“You’re early,” Cha-Cha comments, eyes trained on Five. She and Blue push off the car they’re leaning against and both reach for their guns upon seeing the people behind Five. Five holds up a hand.

“Traffic was light,” Five commented absently. “You know what I want. Where is he?”

Cha-Cha’s gaze lingers, unwavering, on Five for several moments, and he half-expects her to admit that they drove past his body in the ditch they passed three miles back.

But then she nods at Hazel and he walks to the car, to the back of it, and lifts the trunk. Behind him, Five hears Diego curse, hears Luther step in front of him and hold him back.

“The boss wants to talk to you, Five,” Cha-Cha says. “Come with us.”

“Let me see Klaus first,” he demands, fingers twitching. He can feel the gun weighing heavily in the back of his short’s waistband and he itches to reach for it, but he remains still for now. Cha-Cha stays still for several moments, then waves to Hazel, still standing by the trunk of the car.

He sees a brief mess of dark hair tangled in Hazel’s fist; hears a thud followed by a wavering moan that is unmistakeably Klaus’ voice, and then Hazel pulls him around the car.

“What the fuck-“

“ _Diego_ ,” Five snaps, glaring at the brunette who is still behind held back by a tense-looking Luther. Five turns back to the trio in front of him and forces himself to look at Klaus. Hazel lets go of his hair and his brother collapses heavily to the ground and then curls slightly in on himself, whimpering and moaning to himself quietly. He seems completely oblivious to their presence.

His arms are tied together behind his back with duct tape, as is his mouth and eyes covered with it, too. He has no clothes on which only succeeds in letting them see every inch of bruised, bloody, burnt or broken body of his. Even with the distance between them, Five can tell the wounds are nasty. His eyes are drawn to his legs, though; one looking utterly bent and shattered in awkward, painful angles, broken and twisted mercilessly.

“Here he is,” Cha-Cha says, gesturing to his brother. Five grits his teeth together.

“Well, I’m here now,” he states. “Let him go.”

Cha-Cha’s eyes bore into him relentlessly. He’s distracted by Klaus, however; as if only just hearing his voice, he begins to stir on the floor, twitching and lifting his head up from the ground to stare in his general direction, his breathing picking up.

Cha-Cha nods. Five sighs, turns to gesture for Allison and Vanya to go and help him, but Cha-Cha raises her hand. “Ah, ah, ah,” she says, and she crouches by Klaus’ side. “Let him do it. He’s a big boy; he can walk.”

Five’s teeth grind together as he watches her reach out, hand on his shoulder despite the way he flinches away.

“Isn’t that right, Klaus? Your family is right there. Get up and go to them.”

He knows that she’s playing a game, though whether it’s with himself or with Klaus, Five can’t be sure. Nonetheless, he doesn’t interrupt, knowing that doing so will only likely end up hurting Klaus in retaliation, mocking him.

He watches Klaus’ body tense and he shakes his head miserably, muttering words that go unheard. Cha-Cha looks bored. She leans close, whispering something in Klaus’ ear that makes him flinch and then nod his head. She pats his shoulder and steps back and everyone watches, tense, trembling with anger, as Klaus makes a pitiful attempt to get up.

He shifts onto his front, his jaw locked painfully tight. He takes several deep breaths as if bracing himself to move, and Five can only watch with a grimace when he begins to stand, trying his best to hardly move his injured leg. He manages to stand upright after several long, agonising minutes. His chest heaves with heavy, unsteady breaths, and then he steps forwards.

Five expects him to collapse, honestly. His hands behind his back throws his balance, as if he wasn’t dizzy in the first place, and he can’t fathom trying to put any weight on that leg. But Klaus does. He whines, the sound deep in his throat and painful, his body shaking harder, and then he takes another step, then another. He pauses, sways dangerously.

“This is bullshit,” roars Diego, shoving Luther away from him. Five only just manages to catch his wrist when he sees the warning look from Cha-Cha. He tugs him back, gives him the coldest glare he can muster, then turns his attention to Klaus who looks increasingly more panicked.

“This way, Klaus, I’m right here,” he says, voice falling soft. Klaus turns his head in his direction sharply, as if just waking up. He takes a deep breath that comes back out as a sob. He keeps staggering forwards at an agonisingly slow pace. His cheeks are red, humiliated, burning against his icily pale skin.

“Where are his clothes?” Diego asks, glaring death at Hazel and Cha-Cha.

The woman shrugs. “He ruined them,” she accuses. “They were no good.”

Diego simmers, hands shaking with his tight grip on his knives. Five just keeps his gaze on Klaus, expecting his body to give out at any moment, but then he’s close enough that he steps out and rests a hand on his shoulder. Klaus makes a noise of surprise and almost falls in his haste to flinch backwards.

“Klaus, it’s me,” he says quickly, keeping his hand in place. His brother stills, breathing heavily, and he stays still as Five reaches up and peels the tape off his mouth, then off his eyes. He blinks, tears running down his cheeks, and when his eyes fall on Five, he cries harder. When he sees everyone else, he sobs.

“I did debate keeping him,” Cha-Cha announces, bringing their attention back to her. Klaus turns with wide-eyes to watch her. “Real pretty little thing. He was beginning to learn, too.” She maintains eye contact with Klaus as she speaks and Five knows this is unnecessary; knows she’s doing this just to play with Klaus’ mind. “I might regret giving him back.”

Klaus sobs. He sways on the spot and hangs his head, as if resigning himself to the idea that Cha-Cha is going to march right back up, grab him, and drive away with him.

“I was getting real close with him; learned a lot. Isn’t that right, Klaus?”

His brother flinches at his own name, cringing and conflicted over whether or not to respond, and his breathing comes quicker and quicker. Allison gingerly wraps an arm around his waist, taking some of his weight, and murmurs gentle words, unsuccessful in her attempt to soothe him. He hardly acknowledges her.

“I’d say he might be one of my favourites. Real slow, but he was learning. You’ll probably thank me for getting some discipline in him-“

“Stop it,” says Vanya, startling them all. Cha-Cha raises an eyebrow.

“What was that?”

Vanya has her hands balled into tight fists by her side and her eyes glisten with unshed tears when she looks back at Klaus. “I said, stop it,” she repeats, voice lifting over the rising wind. “Leave him alone already.”

Cha-Cha shares a look with a solemn Hazel and laughs, bitter. “You’re Vanya, aren’t you? I must say, I loved the book. So did Klaus.”

Vanya’s face falls and turns a few shades paler. “Sure let us in on a few things about Klaus, at least. Helped us know what we were dealing with.”

“Guys, I think we should go,” murmurs Allison, and her hand reaches out and grabs Luther’s wrist. “Give Klaus your jacket, come on.”

Allison is right; Five knows it. Klaus is rapidly spiralling further and further, breaking down in Allison’s arms, and he’s still hurt and exhausted and needs help, and the weather is taking a sudden turn for the worst; wind picking up violently out of nowhere.

At the very least, at Allison’s insistence accompanied by her dark glare, Luther takes off his jacket and lets her drape it over Klaus’ shoulders, attempting to cover him slightly.

“Stop it,” Vanya says, a tear falling past her eyes. She takes a step forwards and Five reaches to grab her, but a gust of wind so violent makes him stumble backwards and instead grab Luther’s arm to steady himself, muttering a curse.

“Allison, get him in the car,” Five barks, and Allison wastes no time in hurrying Klaus towards one of the cars, and Diego joins her. “Vanya, get back!”

Vanya seems not to hear him. Stuck in an argument in with Cha-Cha, still berating both her and Klaus, only further seeming to infuriate a suddenly passionate Vanya.

“What do we do?” Luther asks, lifting his voice over the wind. Five hisses.

“We need Vanya to _get back_ ,” he mutters, teeth grinding, but all of his attempts at calling out to her fail.

“You didn’t even realise Klaus was missing for days. Would you have ever noticed if I didn’t send that message?” Cha-Cha says. Her gun is ready in her hands, but not yet aiming. “Maybe I should have kept him. You made it clear in your book what you thought of him-“

“Shut up!” Vanya cries. “Shut up! He’s my brother-“

“And you left him with me,” Cha-Cha says tauntingly, darkly, and Vanya cries. She throws her hands out as if she might be able to suddenly silence them, and –

And-

Both Cha-Cha and Hazel are thrown backwards through the air. Five’s eyes fall wide, watching them get thrown into the air and fly backwards before tumbling painfully to the floor, writhing but not getting up.

“What the-“

“Get in the damn car,” Five hisses, shoving Luther towards the parked cars. He blinks and he’s beside a shocked, wide-eyed Vanya, staring at her hands as if they are on fire, and then he blinks and they are both falling into the backseat of Diego’s car, while Vanya falls into the front seat. He almost falls right onto Klaus.

“Go, Diego!” He snaps, and Diego startles, wide-eyed and confused, but he starts nonetheless.

Allison’s car is ahead of them, but not far. Five forces himself to settle as the wind outside does, too, and a glance out the back window shows Hazel and Cha-Cha only just struggling to their feet, and only just.

Five slinks back into the seat, sucking in a deep breath and trying to relax his tense muscles.

Then he turns to his right.

Klaus is in this car. He’s hunched over, cradling a hand to his chest – Diego must have cut the bindings off his wrists – and Luther’s coat hangs loosely off his shoulders. His eyes are wide, staring out the window, and his breathing is too quick for Five to be comfortable.

Distance grows between them and Cha-Cha.

Klaus’ wild eyes bounce rapidly around him, around everyone in the car, and then his face screws up and he bursts into tears. Ugly, breath-steeling, gag-inducing, loud sobs that wrack his whole frame with violent tremors, with a stream of incoherent words muttered half-heartedly beneath it all.

But he’s alive. Maybe only just, but Five counts it as a win, so long as he doesn’t think about what just happened with Vanya.

Rather awkwardly, he reaches out a hand to rest it on Klaus’ shoulder. His brother flinches, pries open his eyes to stare at Five, and then he continues to sob. Five closes his eyes, guilt writhing in his stomach, and he looks away and tries, unsuccessfully, to tune out the sounds of his crying until he falls silent, going limp and doubling over.

Five tugs him slightly into what he hopes is a more comfortable position, slumped against his side with his head on his shoulder, and tugs the jacket tighter around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I thrive off feedback and would love to hear your thoughts! I might follow this up again to follow his recovery, though I'm not sure if that'd be by making this a series or just adding more chapters onto this; I guess we'll see

**Author's Note:**

> Considering expanding this to show the recovery or at least his siblings finding him? But I'm not sure, so please let me know your thoughts!


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